


Unabashedly Strange

by IntrovertedHappiness



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - School, Bullying, Canon Trans Character, Dorks in Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Lack of Communication, Love, Lovesickness, Minor Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Multi, Self-Defense, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 22:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30028560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntrovertedHappiness/pseuds/IntrovertedHappiness
Summary: Lup is sent to private school on a scholarship and it's painfully obvious she doesn't belong here. The kids here aren't like the ones in her old school. They could tear you apart without even glancing back at you. Lup was used to physical confrontation, which was probably how she ended up in the principles office covered in bruises and scrapes. She doesn't get suspended, not yet, anyway, but now Barry and Lucretia are stuck at her side, to show her how to behave....It doesn't work very well.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/The Director | Lucretia/Lup
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	Unabashedly Strange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lebsian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lebsian/gifts).



> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> -Transphobia  
> -Bullying  
> -Physical fighting
> 
> This was made for a prompt I received on tumblr! It got,,, a little out of hand, you could say.

Lup knew she was weird. In this school full of prim, proper, and perfect students, she stuck out like a sore thumb with a gross, chipped nail polish. She was one of the _full scholarship kids_. She didn’t pay her way in like the rest of the students did- or, at least, got their parents to do. Lup got her uniform from a secondhand shop and her shoes from the thrift store. She had brightly colored clips to keep her hair back and kept a fidget cube in her backpack, because goddamn it, sometimes people needed to fidget.

She left her brother, Taako, back at the farm with Grandpa Tostada, where he got the privilege of going to regular high school. But no. Lup was gifted. She was special.

“Just look at those grades,” a fancy woman with a briefcase and bangs that didn’t compliment her face said. “We’ll make good out of you yet.”

Lup scoffed. Taako rolled his eyes. Grandpa Tostada insisted she go and that was the end of the conversation.

The first day of school… wasn’t good. As mentioned above, Lup stuck out like an ugly, gross, broken thumb. Most of these kids had been going to private school their whole life. They knew each other. They flocked together in natural groups and Lup sat on the floor of the hallway eating lunch because it seemed that no one had planned for her to be in the cafeteria anyway. 

The kids here weren’t like they were in her old high school. Back there, insults were coupled with punches, and punches were coupled with bruises that would bring the loser to shame. It didn’t work like that here. These kids knew how to sling insults without even turning towards you. They’d tear you down from the inside out and before you knew it, you’d be _afraid_ of them. Lup did not do _well_ with being afraid. It activated her flight or fight response, and, well...

They’d tell Lup she was a weirdo. She’d grit her teeth and ignore them.

They’d tell Lup she didn’t deserve to be here. She’d bury her knuckles deep into her pockets.

They’d tell Lup she shouldn’t be in the girls’ dorm, because she had been born _wrong_ , like a _freak_ , and-

She sat in the office with an ice pack on her arm and a cut on her face that they had patched up pretty nice. The receptionist was looking at her with a curled lip, disdain in her eyes. The door to the main office creaked open and the principal stuck his head out. He was a tall, graying man, who looked just as displeased as the receptionist did. He beckoned Lup towards him with a twitch of his finger, like she was a _dog_. But she just clenched her jaw and stood up, body aching.

The principal’s office was a big, wide room with many windows. He sat behind a large desk and gestured for her to sit down in front of it. The chair she was given was wooden and stiff and uncomfortable. She could see him sinking into his, with all the plush put into it.

“You got into a fight,” Principal John Hunngri said. “Care to explain?”

“No,” Lup said and the slight smile that had been on Hunngri’s face dropped into a frown.

“Not a word to defend yourself?” Hunngri asked, raising his eyebrows.

“They deserved it.”

“I’m not sure you’re understanding what’s going on,” he said. “You are at very high risk of _at least_ being suspended.”

_Good_ , Lup thought. _Send me back home._

Mr. Hunngri sighed to himself when Lup refused to say another word. He looked at Lup, eyes sharp, and reached out his hand to press down on a device on the desk.

“I’m going to need Mr. Sildar Hallwinter and Miss Lucretia Williams in here as soon as possible, thank you,” he said into the air, and the device crackled for a second before the receptionist answered back a pleasant,

“Of course, Mr. Hunngri,” and the line went dead.

* * *

Instead of being sent back home, Lup was getting what seemed to be patrol officers in the form of nerdy students. They were supposed to accompany her to classes- they each shared a few with her, but apparently, she had never noticed before. Probably due to the fact that she was being fuckin’ _bullied_ , but go off, she supposed.

To start with, there was Sildar Hallwinter. Sildar had hair that was brushed back but didn’t seem to want to stay in place. He wore thick glasses and had somehow gotten away with wearing bluejeans instead of his assigned school uniform slacks. On top of it, Sildar didn’t _like_ to be called Sildar. One of the first moments they were out of the office, he immediately reintroduced himself as “just Barry”.

“Alright then, just Barry,” Lup said and he flushed.

“Ha, ha,” he said dryly and Lup grinned.

Lucretia Williams wasn’t as directly odd as Barry was, with his unique sense of style. She looked like the rest of the girls, in a way. The perfectly ordinary outfit, the tendency to blend into the background, the short, filed nails painted blue. But Lucretia was odd, too. On the second day they had to be in class together, Lup asked to borrow a book she had forgotten and Lucretia ducked her head, stuttering out something Lup couldn’t understand, but just opening her backpack and revealing the dozens and dozens of _journals_ stuffed into it. No school books, no room with anything else. Just journals, filled with her writing.

“Lucretia-” Lup started, but the teacher shushed her before she could get another word out.

In this school full of perfects, there was a group of them who didn’t seem to fit. During lunch, a week after getting assigned to Lup, Barry and Lucretia led her across the quad to a door in the back of the C building. It was hidden between wild vines and bushes that had grown against the walls, painted the same stale cream color as the rest of the building, as if to hide it. Barry raised his hand to knock on the door, but Lucretia stopped him, tugging his arm back.

“Lup,” she whispered intensely, even though they were the only three around. “You can’t tell _anyone_ about this. Please.”

“Oh, y- yeah,” Barry said. “I’m- we’re kinda beggin’ you here, Lup. No one can know about this.”

“Won’t tell a soul,” Lup said. They shared a look- a quick, meaningful one, and Barry knocked four times on the door in a sharp pattern. The door clicked from the other side and cracked open a little bit.

“It’s me and Barry,” Lucretia said to the ajar door. “We, uh, we brought Lup.”

The door opened wider. Barry passed her a tight smile and slipped inside. Lucretia followed. And since Lup had never been one to overthink things too much, she went in, too.

It was a classroom, but it didn’t look like the rest of the school in the slightest. The whole room was lit up with fairy lights and warm-toned lamps. All the desks had been pushed to the side. In the middle of the room was a large rug with several bean bag chairs piled around it. A few students looked up when they entered. There was a table full of snacks Lup hadn’t been allowed since she arrived and hanging from the wall directly opposite of the door was a _rainbow flag_ , shining in the soft light like some sort of holy message. Maybe it was because Lup was now certain that she had walked into heaven.

“Welcome, I guess,” Barry said. “This is the Abyss.”

“We’re still not calling it that,” someone said from Lup’s right, and the room was filled with laughter.

* * *

“I can’t get this- this damn part to work,” Barry muttered, mainly to himself, but Lup snorted from next to him. They were hanging out in the Abyss, which is what Lup decided to call it, despite everyone’s annoyance. Classes had ended today and Lup didn’t even bother going back up to her room to work. All the friends she had were in here, anyway. Lucretia was running late, held up by the chess team at the library, but Lup didn’t mind much. It was entertaining watching Barry try to work on his robotics project.

“Try harder,” Lup suggested and Barry scowled at her.

“Oh yes,” he said. “Try harder! Why didn’t I think of- _ow_! Shit!”

He pulled back from the machinery and wrung out his hand.

“You, uh, you good?” Lup asked.

“Fine,” Barry said with a sigh, starting to work again. “It’s just this one little part that keeps shocking me and- _geez_! Come on!”

Lup muffled a laugh with her hand. Barry glanced over at her, a small smile on his face.

And that’s when it started. With him, at least.

* * *

Lup would have never described Lucretia as a _physically fit_ person. She wore sweaters with button-downs and skirts that reached her knees and kept her glasses on a chain around her neck so she wouldn’t lose them. She was the opposite of what was usually associated with a muscular person. But- _damn_. They didn’t have classes today- something about a holiday or something- and Lup had just happened to get up early to go for a walk around the school grounds when-

She had not expected to see Lucretia running laps. She had not expected Lucretia to have abs beneath her sweaters and coats, but damn- damn it all. Lup’s eyes followed her as she ran around the track. Uniform strides, even breaths, she didn’t even look like this was taking effort. Lucretia only stumbled when she came on the curve back around and spotted Lup standing there. There was a moment of surprise where her stride broke and she slowed.

And then she picked up the pace and jogged towards Lup. When she got close enough, Lucretia wasn’t the only one out of breath.

“Hey,” Lucretia said, a tad bit more awkward than normal. She folded her arms over herself like she was trying to hide. “Uhm, I- no one’s usually out here this early.”

“It’s- it’s chill,” Lup said. “I didn’t expect you to- uh, no offense, but I didn’t know you worked out-?”

“Not really working out,” Lucretia said, though her abs said otherwise. “Um, it’s just-” She broke eye contact with Lup, staring at their feet instead. “I’ve gone through some- some _shit_ , Lup, and I don’t want to let myself be unprepared in any way. Does- does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” Lup said softly, and that’s where it started. With her, at least.

* * *

“It’s not about being popular or- or well-liked or whatever bullshit,” Lup spat. “It’s about them being decent human beings and not _mocking_ us for who we are.”

“Calm down,” Principle Hunngri snapped. “I will not have you disrespecting other students and myself like this.”

“You haven’t even _earned_ my respect,” Lup responded.

Hunngri slammed his hands down on his desk, standing up. His lips were curled in a dissatisfied, crooked line. He stared down Lup, who held eye contact from where she stood. She had a bloodied lip, arms sore and beaten and bruised. Her head was aching terribly, probably from where she had hit it while being shoved down by the other students. Still, she kept her chin up.

“Suspension,” he said curtly, dropping the eye contact at last. He pulled out a few forms on his desk. “For you and your little… _gang_.”

“They didn’t do anything-” Lup started, but Hunngri lifted his hand, cutting her off.

“They enabled the violence-”

“Those kids were _beating up someone_ -”

“Those _kids_ are the best students in this school,” Hunngri said. “Highest grades, perfect performance. You, on the other hand. You’ve not been doing well, have you?”

“I’ve been doing just fine, thanks,” Lup said.

“Not comparatively,” Hunngri said, an echo of a smirk appearing on his face. “And you’ve brought your _friends_ down with you. Mr. Hallwinter and Miss Williams had _wonderful_ scores, but now they’re distracted in class. Now they’re _physically fighting_ other students-”

“We were helping-” Lup tried again.

“You were _enabling_ ,” Hunngri said shortly. “Two weeks suspension for all three of you.”

* * *

“Hey, uh, chin up, Lup,” Taako said in the light of their attic bedroom. He sat across from her on his bed, legs folded under him. Outside, the sunlight had long since faded away. Ever since Lup arrived back home, Grandpa Tostada had grounded her. She wasn’t allowed to leave the house unless it was to do farm work. So far, Taako had been her only source of comfort.

“I’ve been suspended before,” he said one evening.

“This is different,” Lup said into her pillow. “I- I didn’t care about being suspended at the beginning, T. I _wish_ I could have been. But, I… Now I’ve got friends who I’ve dragged into my shit? They’ve never been suspended before, Ko! They’re _good people_ and I’m fuckin’... bringing them down.”

“You’re not,” Taako said sharply. “Lup, look at me.”

Lup grumbled but lifted her head. In the light of their lamp, she could see how serious his face was set.

“You’re not bringing them down,” he said. “What you did was what any _decent_ person would do. Your- your friends, whoever they are, they know what they were getting into. They were being _compassionate fuckin’ people_ and trying to help stop a fight. It’s not your fault.”

“I don’t want to mess up with them,” Lup said quietly. “I don’t want to lose them. I- they- I don’t know how to explain what they mean to me.”

Her words hung in the air for a moment. Lup dropped her head back into the pillow. The gentle chirp of crickets came through the open window and she heard Taako sigh, softly.

“You got it bad for both of them, huh?” he asked and Lup only grabbed her pillow harder, hoping her small nods were enough of an answer.

* * *

Her suspension lasted ages, and to bring it to a close, winter break was starting. She wouldn’t be going back to school for another two weeks and her heart ached with missing Barry and Lucretia. Any one-off thoughts of holding their hands or kissing their cheeks or holding them close seemed to intensify.

It was snowing outside, the farmland covered in a fresh dusting of powder, as she thought about Lucretia. Her hair tied up tightly as she jogged around campus, her dry, quiet humor. She thought about Lucretia’s hands and how the edges of her fingers were calloused from writing so much. She thought about her stomach, or the brief glances that Lup had gotten of it, anyway, when her shirt rode up. The sweep of dark lipstick that always was present across her lip. Lup wondered what that lipstick would look like against her own skin, pressed against her jaw, messy on her own lips.

She thought about Barry, too, as she watched Grandpa Tostada leave footprints behind him in the snow on his way to the shed. Where Lucretia was sharp, Barry was soft. His hands were smooth and his eyes crinkled when he grinned. He was two inches shorter than her but made up for it in the way he filled the room with his laugh- and god, she loved that laugh. She thought about the way his lips curled up and how kissing them would feel, and how flustered he looked at even the slightest flirt.

And days and nights seemed to flow by in a haze. Under the morning sun, she and Taako shoveled snow and she tuned out his voice imagining throwing a snowball at Barry and kissing it better when he complained about “sensitive skin”. She could see Lucretia, in her mind’s eye, dumping snow on Barry’s head as Lup talked him through it.

“Earth to Lup,” Taako said, snapping her out of it. “Hello? Ya still in there?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lup said. “What’s up?”

“I, uh. I know you’re all in your own world with lovesickness and shit, but I’ve got somethin’ I wanna show you tonight. You up for sneakin’ out after Tostada’s asleep?”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Lup said.

* * *

In retrospect, Lup should have noticed Taako on the edge of his seat when she talked about relationships. If she had paid a little more attention, she might have noticed him perking up, waiting for a chance to say something, before she plowed on about Lucretia and Barry.

However, her small amount of guilt wasn’t going to stop her from teasing him endlessly. When they showed up at his boyfriend’s house, said boyfriend answered the door in full cosplay, apparently unable to change before they came over. He played what was basically Death personified in an online D&D group and apologized endlessly as Lup struggled not to laugh.

At least she could tell her friends that her brother was dating the Grim Reaper. 

* * *

They went back into the full swing of classes the moment Lup arrived. When the first period started, Barry hadn’t entered the room. On to the second, and he still wasn’t there. Lucretia missed third and fourth and they didn’t show up to lunch at _all_. The day crawled at a gloomy pace by the time the eighth period rolled around and Lup hadn’t seen either of them. She was getting antsy, unbearably so, and it took all of her willpower to wait until the end of class to run to the Abyss. The door was unlocked when she went for the knob, out of breath and desperate.

They were where she thought they would be, in their secluded corner of the classroom. But not at all doing what she had expected.

It looked like they had caught each other halfway. Barry was still half in his beanbag, leaning over to card his hand through Lucretia’s hair. She held him tight by the shirt, pulling him closer into her. Barry’s face was the color of a tomato, red all the way through, and Lucretia didn’t seem to have her cool together all that much either. They separated when the door opened.

Lup was out of breath at the scene for all the wrong reasons.

* * *

Principle Hunngri called her into the office the first night back and brought with him the icing on Lup’s terrible cake.

“Miss Williams and Mr. Hallwinter have moved classes,” he said in that clipped, professional voice that Lup hated so much. “Taking into account the disaster that caused your suspension, I saw it fit to move them and their guardians agreed. You will stay where you are and not get into any more trouble. Am I understood?”

For once, Lup couldn’t bring herself to fight back. There was a cold, numb spot in her chest, sinking down into her stomach and up her throat. She couldn’t look him in the eye when she responded,

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Hunngri prompted, grinning.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Hunngri said proudly. “Now, get to bed. I expect your work ethic to improve in the next few weeks.”

* * *

Lup _wished_ that her work ethic improved. Instead, she couldn’t even hear what the teachers were saying to her half the time. The homework made her dizzy and it seemed impossibly hard without Barry and Lucretia there to cheer her up.

The worst part, though, is that they were there. They stuck to each other like glue now and passed her glances all throughout lunch with worried eyes. For her part, she kept her head down and avoided them. She had been- what? A third wheel to them all this time? She tried to comb through their history for times when it had seemed too obvious to ignore and she found it- Lucretia passing Barry sly glances and Barry’s cheeks heating up. Barry’s hands guiding Lucretia’s on a piano one afternoon in the music room.

Lup had thought that maybe, there was something there for her too. But the memories- _dreams?_ \- lost their color in the darkest part of her mind and faded away. It was too simple to say she was upset about it. She was torn-up, maybe, because she had never experienced love in such a pure form before this year and it had been ripped away from her in the moment she wanted it the most.

She didn’t go back to the Abyss, anymore. She learned to overlook the door, like it had been intended by whoever had covered it up. Whenever she thought about it, she thought about Lucretia’s hands over Barry’s and his hands in her hair. She thought about the ache in her skull and the phantom lips over hers, all a dream, a reality that would never be true.

She just had to make it through the school year. They were all in their last year, after all. After graduation, she could leave and never see them again. Go back to Taako and Grandpa Tostada and that old, dusty town where she’d live the rest of her life. She’d waste away like the rest of the folks there. That was her destiny.

* * *

_Lup,_

_I hope school isn’t sucking ass for you right now. From what you’ve said before, it sounds pretty shitty. I mean, what kind of school doesn’t even hold a prom, amirite?_

_Funny thing about prom, actually. There was kinda like- an uprising at the school down here and now the Gays and I are gonna have our own prom. I scored you a ticket, don’t worry. And it’s over Spring Break so you can come!_

_(Oh, nooo, Taako, what about my precious what's-their-faces, Lucretia and Barold? That’s okay, I brought two more home when no one was looking, so I don’t even have to pay for them. I wanna see all three of you chucklefucks there, alright?)_

_Don’t let me down,_

_Taako_

Inside the envelope were three colorful tickets. Lup wanted to burn them.

...She didn’t.

* * *

When the snow melted, Lup did her schoolwork outside. There was no point in being locked up any more than she had to be. The edge of campus led into vast, endless woods and she sat on a thick branch at just the beginning of the trees until she had to go to bed. The forest soothed her, reminded her of nights spent with Taako and their aunt’s cottage, before they were placed in Tostada’s care. She could feel the warm flicker of fire if she closed her eyes for long enough. The smokey smell of the wood and the starry night sky.

That’s where she was when she heard it.

It was quiet, but Lup knew the sound. When she looked down, a student from the Abyss was cowering back towards the trees. Lup recognized them as the one she had helped before break. The same gang of older kids were closing in towards them.

“I _knew_ it,” the ringleader said. “Thought you could hide it from everyone, huh? Thought no one would be able to tell how much of a freak you really are?”

The kid shook their head, eyes wide.

“Listen,” the ringleader said. “If you’re not a girl and you’re not a boy, then you’re not a human. There’s no third gender, there’s no non-binary or whatever the fuck. What do you think you’re doing? You just want to be noticed, don’t you?”

“No, I-”

“Well, we’ve noticed you,” the ringleader continued. “But no one ever will again, I can guarantee.”

Lup was out of the tree before the first fist was raised and she made sure that when it was, it was her own.

* * *

Her suitcase was closed with a definite snap and her school uniform was stuffed into the trash can of her dorm, in hopes that no one would see it and it would rot. She had broken her foot on her way down the tree and her ribs were aching. Half of the world was spinning, thanks to the black eye. The school nurse had patched her up for a final time before she was sent to see Hunngri. She was pretty sure the whole school could hear him shouting.

To top it off, it was raining when she went to sit on the steps for Tostada to show up.

Lup didn’t feel bad about punching the kid. If anything, she felt bad that she was pulled away before she could do any worse. She could remember shouting and someone was crying and then there was Barry, in her face to inspect her eye, and Lucretia hooking an arm around her to help her walk back up to the school.

Why had they been there?

“Oh, fuck, it’s slippery out here.”

Well, there’s always now to ask why.

Lucretia slid more than sat next to her. Barry sat on her other side, carrying an umbrella, and they sat so close to her that it was nearly suffocating. She looked at her hands, the stairs, the street, anywhere but them. Lucretia, after taking a moment to get settled from her slip, placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I think we need to talk,” she said.

* * *

During winter break, Barry and Lucretia mourned. Lup had been gone for nearly three weeks now. They had been lucky enough to get in-school suspension, since this was their very first act of getting in trouble, but Hunngri had never seemed to like Lup. The Abyss was quieter without her, an impossible amount lonelier. Upon receiving the news that they would have to switch classes, they cried together because Lup was something they didn't realize they couldn’t live without. They had had each other all their lives- from elementary school to high school, just out of touch, just too far into longing instead of action.

But Lup spurred something out of them they didn’t know they could achieve. Of course, they loved each other. They had since that awkward required dance in sixth grade, where Lucretia stepped on Barry’s toes too many times and Barry threw up his dinner on the pavement later. It was obvious but they had to hold off. They had to wait.

Lup brought impatience and passion and a type of reckless love they had never seen before. A now or never type of deal. A give before you take kind of thing.

Barry felt it first, with her. He scored bad on a test he had been working hard towards and Lup caught him having a panic attack on the stairwell, the F on his sheet clearly visible. She held him, worked him through breathing exercises he didn’t know existed, and let him slump against her as he cried. She cracked a stupid joke when he had calmed down a bit (“That’s what friends are for, Barry. Oh! Hey! F is for friends, huh?”) and he laughed until his stomach hurt.

That’s when he knew.

Lucretia had never been great at emotions in front of others, but with Lup, everything spilled out and crashed around her. Very few knew of her past. She didn’t like talking about it. Lup wasn’t going to make her talk about it, but one day, Lucretia couldn’t stop her brain from letting it all out. She told Lup about her year alone as a child- living day to day not knowing if the next would come- until she was finally picked up out of the secluded building where her parents had died, and carted off to child services.

Lup didn’t say a word until the end. And when she did, she said something Lucretia had never expected.

“I’m so proud of you for being here.”

That’s when she knew.

Yearning for a relationship is hard when your crush is right next to you, let alone when they’re away. Barry and Lucretia only really got to talking about their feelings- for each other, for Lup- when they were alone in the Abyss. It came in a tangled, messy confession, with laughter and they were kissing and it was good.

They snuck in there a couple more times to do it again, and again, and again. When the bell rang, signaling the end of the final class of the day, it was only a half-formed thought to pull away. Both of them wished they would have listened to their brains and fixed themselves up before Lup had seen them.

It seemed to crash and burn there, leaving Barry and Lucretia in the smoldering rubble. Something so perfect gone wrong. They wanted to be together. They wanted her.

But Lup wouldn’t even look up at them. She stopped coming to the Abyss, stopped smiling at them in the hallways, stopped- stopped being _Lup_. No recklessness, no accidental love, no more glances and grins and laughs. No more Lup.

It was torture. It was tearing themselves apart before even thinking of the other and it had to stop, it had to come to a standstill-

And then Lup got into another fight and the decision was made.

This was happening. They were happening. They were going to be amazing, no matter what anyone said.

* * *

The night of prom was cool and cloudless. The sun had just barely set over the horizon. Lup had watched it turn from blue to orange to dark, inky black. She tugged at the edges of her dress and watched the street, careful to look into the windows of the cars passing by. They weren’t here yet. Where _were_ they?

The door to the rented space opened and Taako slid out. His hair was as perfect as ever and Kravitz had helped him braid a few flowers into it. He stood next to Lup, half resting on her.

“Not here yet?”

“No,” Lup said. “They’ll come. They said they’d come.”

“They’ll come,” Taako said easily. “Just wait and see.”

And they did. They always did.

Lucretia had never looked more _beautiful_ than she did now. She hiked up her gown as she got out of the car and Lup nearly laughed seeing the sneakers she wore underneath. It fit her snugly, hugging her hips, trailing only slightly behind her. Her lips were still stained with a perfect, dark blue. Lup’s heart fluttered in her chest.

Barry got out after her, already blushing and smiling awkwardly. He had traded out his bluejeans for once in his life, which amazed Lup to no end. He had his suit sleeves rolled up already and he waved at her with that perfect, lovely smile. The handkerchief in his chest pocket matched the color on Lucretia’s lips exactly.

“Oh wow,” Taako said. “You’ve got a type, huh?”

They both held identical tickets in their hands. They were only halfway across the parking lot when Lup started towards them and they ended up meeting in the middle.

“I, uh, I like your earrings,” Barry complimented. They were the same blue as Lucretia’s lipstick and Barry’s handkerchief. They jingled a bit when she smiled. “They’re kinda funky and weird.”

“Just like us,” Lucretia butted in and Lup snorted. She leaned in, stealing an utterly wonderful kiss from Lucretia, only turning towards Barry when he tugged on her arm and pressed himself closer to them.

So this is what’s like to be weird, huh?

Lup, pressed between Lucretia and Barry as they kissed, hoped that she’d never have to be normal.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaa thank you for reading!! Comments and kudos are very appreciated! You can check me out on tumblr [@barry-j-blupjeans](https://barry-j-blupjeans.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
